Excerpt. Canyon

Canyon
Foster, James W
ISBN 13: 9781897381229
Paperback; perfect bound; 5.5 x 8.5

Sample Excerpt, © Rain Publishing Inc.


1


As the sun continued its retreat into the west casting its fading rays upon her corner of the world, the girl stirred awake. Night was falling, and under its cloak was the safe time for her and her people to carry on with the majority of their daily business.

This was the only way of life the girl had ever known. Darkness was a haven, a friend for her and her people. It was daylight that produced tales of their version of the boogeyman, outsiders. All outsiders were to be feared, and Mala knew that anyone she didn't recognize was an outsider and therefore an enemy.

Under no circumstance was she to allow herself to be seen by an outsider. Great pains were taken by the Sasquatch Indians to keep sightings to a minimum. Strict rules were enforced to ensure that every member of the tribe avoided being sighted by outsiders at all costs. Accidents were forgivable, but if it was deemed that a sighting by an outsider was due to negligence the penalty would be extremely harsh.

Mala was excited. Tonight there was to be a wedding and that meant a distraction. Except for the unmarried females who were afraid of attracting the attention of The Other, the whole tribe would be in attendance, and it was under circumstances such as these that Mala could escape the canyon, and was briefly free to roam.

She knew that leaving the canyon and the tribe's network of caves and tunnels was extremely risky. Not only to herself because of the wicked punishment she knew awaited her if ever she were caught, but to the entire tribe.

The Sasquatch Indians had concealed themselves for generations, and The Other, who had led her people into the canyon all those generations ago had warned them that discovery by the outsiders of the world beyond their little haven would be disastrous to them. It would indeed be the end of their way of life, the end of their tribe. This had been drilled into each of their minds from the day they were old enough to comprehend such warnings, and they all feared The Other too much to openly doubt him.

In spite of all of this, Mala was unable to resist the urge to slip away from time to time when the opportunity arose…


2

Late on a hot Saturday afternoon in late spring, two dark-haired boys walked along a quiet residential street in a little town called Vollmer's Hollow. Each of them carried a fishing pole and small tackle box. On weekends when the weather was warm, these two could often be found with their fishing poles in hand. Summer vacation was still a few weeks away, but already Shawn and Denny Jackson were sporting deep farmer's tans from many hours spent out in the sun.

The young brothers were returning home from yet another day at their favorite fishing spot in front of an unused fishing shanty. The shanty was located on a channel running inland from Lake Sasquatch. Today they had only caught a few small rock bass, but what they caught was only of secondary concern to the boys, it was simply the act of being outside that mattered to them most.

Occasionally the boys did catch something that was worth keeping. Sometimes there were brown and lake trout in the channel, and there was always perch and pickerel to be caught as well as a large variety of other fish.

The favorite of both boys was catfish. Even a smallish catfish put up a pretty good fight, and their father liked to eat the ugly things.

"This is considered a delicacy in the southern states," he had explained to his sons.
Shawn and Denny loved to bring catfish home, or more precisely, they loved to watch their father clean the catfish that they brought home. Mike Jackson had a slick way of cleaning these fish. First he nailed them to a board in the garage. Then he took a sharp knife and severed the fish's backbone, first just under its gills, and then at the tail. After that he took a pair of vise grips, clamped them onto the backbone and pulled. The backbone came away from the head and tail bringing along with it the fillets that would soon find their way to the frying pan. When the senior Jackson was done with this little operation he'd look over at his fascinated sons and wink.
"Hungry?” He'd ask them.

The boys would decline grimacing. They had no inclinations to join their father in the delicacy; they weren't nearly as big on eating fish as they were on catching them. They didn't really like any fish unless it was Captain Highliner, or Hind Liner as Denny liked to call it. Watching their father skin them was reward enough to the boys for bringing a catfish home.

Knowing how much their sons enjoyed the outdoors, Shawn and Denny's parents thought that it might be a good idea to enroll the two into boy’s club. When they asked the boys about it, Shawn, the older and usually more responsible of the two, took to the idea right away, and his enthusiasm alone was all it took for Mike and Patty Jackson to make the decision final.

Denny on the other hand, was a little more reluctant about it than his older brother. He thought that the uniforms looked ridiculous, and that boy’s club was a club for geeks. He would much rather have been signed up for baseball. It didn't matter how he felt about it though, his brother had spoken up so quickly that Denny hadn't been given a chance to voice his opinion on the matter. They were going to be enrolled into the club and that was that……….